Collision of Worlds Again
by Tuppence
Summary: So what happens when the world is saved again but the Doctor loses all of his companions, two of them permanently? He goes to the future, to find a new companion, only to realise the world needs saving again, with the universes colliding. Again.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer****:** I don't own Doctor Who.

**Author's note****:** So this is a story I've wanted to write for quite some time. It takes place post-New Series 4 but before the specials. Tenth Doctor, naturally. This is the start and focuses on the Doctor only, but don't worry. The next chapter will be all about Rose...

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Collision of Worlds...Again

Chapter I

He wasn't sure how long he had spent inside the TARDIS, sitting, doing nothing except sensing every little bit of his loneliness, but it must have been considerable time. He had spent enough time to mourn the loss of all of his recent companions, particularly the two who were the most important to him and the most lost. Now that he was done with wallowing in self-pity, as he described it to himself, he forced himself to get up. He chose the future rather than the past, for no particular reason (except that maybe the past was a little too painful and raw right now). At random, he chose the date and pressed the appropriate levers down, remembering with a sort of masochistic pleasure a time when there were enough crew mates to manoeuvre the TARDIS properly.

His hearts beat faster, in time with the new sounds and hum and clangs of the TARDIS now moving through time and space. It made him feel a little more alive, a little rejuvenated but his thoughts strayed back to those who had something better. And to the one who had lost everything – Donna. She'd helped bring him back from the brink after losing Rose the first time. Who would bring him back from the brink this time? The thought brought a shooting pain through both of his hearts but there was optimism there now. After all, he had lost so many companions in the past. Granted, none of it had been such a horrible, sudden blow (and he had never fallen in love with a human woman and seen her kissing someone who looked like him but wasn't him)...but he had survived those, hadn't he? He'd survive this too! Dimly, he realised the thoughts were probably so influential because they were sometimes in Rose's voice and other times Donna's, but he ignored the thought. He'll find another companion in the future, he decided, because he did need one – Donna'd been right. He did need someone to stop him, hold him back from wreaking havoc when he was trying to deal with his grief and anger. And right now, he had plenty of both to commit genocide at least twice over. So that's what he'd do; go to the future, find a companion and everything would be ok – at least for now, and that was all he needed.

The TARDIS shook to a stop and, almost gleefully, the Doctor opened the door to stare into a darkened metal room of some kind, with a sobbing girl in front of him.

"What?" He uttered with confusion.

"Who're you?" The girl sniffled.

"Wait, where are we?" The doctor had already stepped outside the TARDIS and was inspecting the metal room with interest, wondering where the background insistent humming was coming from. The technology that he could spy was far too advanced for the year he had chosen, so presumably, the TARDIS had landed a couple of centuries in advance.

"Who are you?" Her voice was no longer trembling. "How'd you get in here?" And now, it was bristling with suspicion.

"I'm The Doctor." He replied and flashed her a smile before it faded, once he realised she'd been crying. "You ok?"

"Yes – no – I'm fine." She stuttered, standing up. She was a short thing, a couple of inches over five feet. "Doctor what?"

"What year is it, could you tell me?" He ignored her question. He made a mental note to ask her why she was crying later but right now, he wanted to get his bearings sorted out. "Oh, what's your name, by the way?" He added a little absently.

"Faye."

"That's a pretty name." Again, it was said absently, but this time, he was thinking of another pretty four-letter named girl, who was probably living her happily-ever-after with a man who was him but wasn't him. Trying to brush off the stab of pain, he said brightly, "What year did you say this was?"

"It's 2074, I think, but who _are _you? And how'd you get in here?" There was a little less suspicion in her voice now.

"2074...wait, what d'you mean 'you think'? Don't you know?" He turned his whole attention to the girl. She was young – similar age to Rose when she'd first joined him, a regeneration ago. Or did it count as two regenerations ago? She had big eyes, green though, not like Rose's. And her features were more delicate, with thin, carefully shaped (and painted) lips. She wasn't like Rose at all, really, except in age.

"Well, I'm not sure. Why does it matter anyway? And how'd you get in here?"

"Why does it matter?" He pursed his lips to stop himself from stating just how stupid and idiotic she was, to think so little of time. It reminded him of Donna in some ways – Donna before her eyes had been opened. Another sharp pang of pain that he chose to ignore. "Never mind. _You_ wouldn't get it."

As he resumed his examination of his surroundings, Faye, pouting, placed her hands on her hips. "_I _wouldn't get it? _I _WOULDN'T GET IT? Who the hell do you think you are? You didn't know the year either!"

She shouted a bit like Donna too, the Doctor thought as he turned to look at her. "Good point. But I have a justification for being unsure about the year. What's your excuse?"

"What's your justification?" Faye retaliated, jutting her stubborn chin out.

He didn't know quite what to say to that. Tell her that he was a Time Lord, the _last_ of the Time Lords? Tell her that he could travel through time and space? Instead, he opted for, "Well, I was sort of...in a place and now I'm here and I really don't know what the date is or anything." And saved the worlds too, but he kept that smug thought to himself.

"What kind of place?" Her eyes were narrowed, partly with suspicion and partly with curiosity, and the Doctor found himself warming up to her.

"Just this place...far away, long time ago..." His voice drifted into silence but he was careful to not do the same with his thoughts. Now was definitely not the time to take a trip down memory lane. There was silence, except for that incessant humming, and he was now on his feet, peering at the wall and any hole he could find, with interest. It took him a while to recognise them – bullet holes. And there were bullet shells on the ground. What had been going on here, and who was this girl?

She spoke up, abruptly breaking the silence. "Were you..." Her voice was hesitant, tentative, her lips seemed unsure of the words they were forming. "Were you...cryogenically frozen...too?" Her words were quiet, barely a whisper but there was hope there, and a vulnerability that suddenly made her seem like a child.

But her words had grabbed his attention and sent his Grey Matter into overdrive. _Too_? "Were you cryogenically frozen then?" He asked, avoiding her question.

"Yeah...and I woke up now," Said with a careless shrug of the shoulders, or was it just pretence?

"In 2074?"

"Well, no, a few years ago."

Her eyes were large, he noticed, and she was young. But apparently, she had seen enough for there to be bullet holes in the place around her and bullet shells on the floor, and she wasn't really young, not even in age. Not if she had been cryogenically frozen...and in time to be unfrozen by 2074? _Now_ what had gone wrong with the world?

He came to a decision. "Faye, have you ever been inside a TARDIS?" He asked her brightly, throwing a charming smile in her direction. At the shake of her head, he beckoned her over to the small blue box.

"It's tiny." She said, but the Doctor was quick to notice that there wasn't derision or disgust in her voice. It was just a genuine, impartial comment. He was beginning to really like this girl.

"Yeah...it does look it, doesn't it? Why don't you take a look inside?"

He waited and it was rewarded. He heard the sharp intake of her breath, the gasped out "wh" as a half-question. And he said, in an intentionally casual voice, "Yeah, it does seem a little bigger on the inside, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," She agreed, but he was surprised to not hear her asking questions. She'd been an inquisitive thing earlier, but why wasn't she curious about this? He decided to push her towards the questions himself.

"Wanna know what it does?"

"Sure. Does it fly?"

"Er...sort of. You could say that. Through space. And time." He waited for her reaction, watching her as her eyes widened and as her mouth fell open, nowhere enough for it to be an 'o' but wide enough for some of her white teeth to show through.

"Through space and time?" She asked faintly, looking around the inside of the TARDIS.

"Yup. Want to come on a trip with me?" She nodded with fervour in response, her back turned towards this odd man that had come to her in her moments of despair. "Where do you want to go?"

It didn't take her a moment to think or reply. The words were leaving her lips before she fully realised what she herself was saying. "The headquarters for the Red Dragons. Tharsis City." She turned to look at him questioningly. "Do you know how to get there?" Then she added, almost a little shyly, "_Can_ you get there?"

"Sure thing," He grinned at her, dimples appearing in his cheeks. Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong. Tharsis City...was on Mars. And humans shouldn't be on Mars yet. They shouldn't have the ability to cryofreeze people either. And he was going to have to save the world again, with this little thing beside him. He pulled some levers down, pushed some up, pressed a button here and there, pressed one of them a few times in succession and soon, they were rearing to go. It was only then that he noticed what she wore. "Wow. You're wearing..." He coughed uncomfortably. "That's quite an interesting outfit." He said, lamely. It was a poor description of what she wore: little ankle white boots, thigh high stockings with suspenders, tiny yellow shorts that didn't reach the top of her stockings and a tiny yellow top that didn't cover up her abdomen or much of her buxom chest. She was certainly a sight. How had he not noticed before, he wondered, with his cheeks warming at the thought.

He knew the answer. And it was the reason he'd come to the future in the first place, searching for another companion. It was two reasons, really, primarily. But no matter. And she was oblivious to him comments about her looks, looking around with interest and expectation.

Onto the next great adventure, he decided, as the TARDIS began to move through space and time, excitement pumping through his veins now,, despite the dull ache that persisted...

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**Next working on****:** So a quick author's note at the end and a shameless plugging of another one of my stories. The girl that the Doctor meets in this chapter is Faye Valentine, a character from Cowboy Bebop, one of my favourite fandoms and characters. But don't worry. This isn't a cross-over; it's more like a momentary merging and winking of two fandoms to each other. I really hope you like the start and I hope you will comment on it; any feedback is appreciated. Tell me what I did well or what I did poorly, or tell me that my writing is so bland, you're indifferent to it. Trust me, I'll appreciate it all.

And to now shamelessly plug another story of mine, I'll be next working on **Sparkling Onyx**.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer****:** I don't own Doctor Who. Nor do I own Torchwood. Nor do I own Cowboy Bebop (to which I made references in the last chapter and will do so in the next chapter). Nor do I own any other random thing or pop culture reference I might make in this fanfic.

**Author's Note****:** Just to reassure you, you don't need to have seen or know anything about Cowboy Bebop (aside from that it is an AWESOME anime). Anything you need to know will be explained in this story. As for the rest of the Doctor Who stuff, this is essentially AU from the New Series 4 series finale. And I'm a huge fan of the Tenth Doctor/Rose pairing, so that _will_ arise later on. And there is a logical explanation for everything. So yeah, what I'm trying to say is, expect a lot of focus on the Tenth Doctor and Rose, a little bit on Jack, minimal on the Gwen/Jack pairing (as I'm not a fan) and a LOT of drama.

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Collision of Worlds...Again

Chapter II

When Jack had received the distress calls, presumably from Gwen, he'd been irritated, panicked, worried, nostalgic and a host of other emotions he'd been striving to ignore and forget. But he'd gone straight to his ship and set the tangents for Earth.

An emergency was an emergency. Even if he was drowning in misery, he couldn't just let the Earth be destroyed, not after watching the Doctor save it so many times and not when he cared about too many people there.

Which was how, a few hours later, he landed his ship in the familiar rural Welsh areas and made his way towards where he had seen a ship that had seemingly crashed. It was a long, hilly walk but, uncertain as to the happenings, he couldn't risk contacting anyone or hitching a ride, so he chose to walk in the drizzle, relishing in the familiarities of the surroundings.

He had missed it.

What he hadn't missed were the heart-stopping moments that seemed to come along far too frequently on Earth. It had taken him a good solid forty minutes (at least) of walking, and when he had walked over the peak of the final hill, he found himself staring at what was clearly Gwen and all those left from his team, pointing guns at the spaceship that remained closed.

They had the ship surrounded – which was good. But the guns they were holding, from what he could see, were the basic kind, the kind you grabbed when something unexpected happened and you needed it in a hurry. That was bad; depending on what was inside the ship, it could be _very_ bad.

Lucky for him, he had one of his more powerful, all-rounder weapons with him but this looked big. Debating it in his head, his choice ended up being very simple, really. He couldn't afford to lose any more of his team and there was only one being that could help out. He sent an SOS signal to the Doctor.

Uncertainly, he announced his presence, well aware that he could be shot dead before they could recognise him. No matter how many times he died, he didn't get used to it and it most definitely did not get any more fun. Raising his arms, he said, "Hey there, people."

As expected, all guns were trained on him, until a wavering voice that he recognised as Gwen's spoke up. "Jack? Is that you? You actually came?"

He smiled his trademark smile. "What can I say? Saving the Earth is a bad habit of mine. Mind if you point the guns away from me?"

Gwen barked the order – sounded like she was in charge, Jack mused, impressed – and he relaxed his arms as the guns moved away.

"Care to tell me what kind of trouble's brewing now?" The spaceship looked completely alien to him, internally sniggering at the pun, even as he acknowledged that that alone made the whole situation a whole lot scarier.

"We don't know," came Gwen's terse reply. "We got signs of '_things_' happening, not entirely sure what but it was all there. We tried to predict what was causing it, what was happening but we just had nothing to explain it all. And then _this_ thing crashed, all of a sudden, a few hours ago. I sent you the distress call straight away and then came here. Nothing's happened since then." She turned to look at him, and even in the dark, he could see the toll the last few months had taken on her. "Any idea what's in there?"

His decision was made instantly. "I'm going to take a closer look."

There was a murmur of protests that he chose to ignore. He was distantly aware of feeling relieved that Gwen hadn't protested, aware of his immortal nature, but the most pressing emotion was a mixture of frank curiosity and dread mingling with anxiety.

The material was familiar, a well-known compound in the further etches of this galaxy but the design of the ship was completely inconsistent with that area of the galaxy. The design of the ship was entirely original, as far as Jack was aware. It looked like a fair few designs had been melded together, all from different periods of time gone by and a variety of different cultures. He was pretty damn impressed that it was functional – that spoke of considerable skill and creativity.

He couldn't perceive any etchings or markings on the ship to indicate _what_ could have created this. The material was in its natural colour and state, seemingly nothing attempted to beautify it. And yet, it was a treasure in his eyes, the novelty of such a new thing, however dangerous it may be.

(If he was honest, he'd always been attracted to dangerous. He _loved_ it, revelled in it. It's why his times with The Doctor were some of his happiest. Why he'd been attracted to Rose in the first place... It was always dangerous being attracted to someone the Doctor was possessive of.)

Maybe the thing knew this. Or maybe he was just a catalyst for things happening because the instant he touched it, felt the cool material beneath his hands, he could feel it shuddering. He heard its whirring sounds surround him and he instinctively moved backwards, away from it.

Still too close for Gwen's liking; he heard her panicked shouts to move away, get away from it. He'd never really been one to listen to people's advice. He preferred to stand there, full view of what he now could see as the door. He dimly realised it meant that Gwen wouldn't have a good shot at whatever was inside and, therefore, vice versa, but he pushed all thoughts of his former comrades away. He could dwell on them later, when this impending crisis was handled and over with.

He didn't realise he was holding his breath until he heard himself letting it out in one big gasp. The door had opened and he could just about peer inside it. Empty. Unfurnished. What the hell? Everything was indicating that this was a spontaneous kind of trip or an urgent one, but he'd never seen anything like this before. Was this another change in the timeline that the Doctor was currently sorting out or... Or what? He had no idea what else it could be.

He took a step closer, heard all of the guns and weapons getting cocked. His own was all prepared to be used instantly. He moved closer, one slow step at a time. His immortal heart started thudding when he saw some slight movement to the right side of the door, a small huddle on the floor moving. Struggling to stand up, he realised. It had a humanoid form, though he couldn't be sure what species it exactly was. It looked injured, if its stilted movements were anything to go by.

It managed to stand up, leaning heavily against the wall next to the door, as Jack stepped closer, barely a metre away. It turned, continuing to lean against the wall, obviously preparing to exit from the ship and he_ swore_ his heart stopped. He felt sick, he felt like crying or killing or _something_. Fuck!

All he did was shout, "Halt fire" in a raspy voice that didn't sound like his at all. Three swift steps took him to the door of the ship. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

"_Rose?_" He managed to question through the bile rising inside his throat.

She turned to look at him, a feeble smile trembling on her lips. She whispered faintly, "Jack. Hey..."

She wasn't supposed to be in this bizarre alien ship. She wasn't supposed to be in this universe. And she most definitely wasn't supposed to be bleeding so heavily that her clothes – he could now see that it was a hospital gown – was drenched in red. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_.


End file.
